Tag: Donald trump

Think back to a year ago today and follow the mainstream news narrative to present time. Then candidate Trump was the GOP nominee for President of the United States and was largely seen as the underdog, a position he would continue to hold through the November 8th elections. The public narrative on candidate Trump was that he would drag the United States down into a dictatorship and ruin it forever. That same narrative rings true today in some media outlets, as well as in many opposition groups like Antifa and others. But is this idea really a possibility?

Let’s first take a look at Antifa and what they believe that President Trump is on a path to do to America. Antifa is a very far-left leaning group that uses military action and tactics along with violence to push their anti-fascist (hence the name Antifa) agenda . Antifa is fighting hard in the streets against President Trump and many Right-Wing policies that they oppose. This group claims that President Trump is a fascist and will do whatever it takes to prevent him from implementing his fascist policies. (I’ll pass on discussing the irony of using violence to fight their perceived violence.)

First and foremost, let us address what a fascist is. Merriam-Webster defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.” While it is no secret that President Trump promotes a form of Nationalism with his “America First” policy, he is far cry from fitting the rest of the profile of a fascist.

But for the sake of arguing, let’s say that President Trump is a fascist and wants to implement his fascist policies to make America into his own authoritarian dictatorship. Is it possible for him to do this? The short answer is no and it is due to the checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution.

The Office of the President wields a vast amount of power, which has expanded greatly over the last half century, but that power isn’t unlimited or unchecked. The president’s powers reach from enforcing the laws, to being Commander-in-Chief of the military, to Executive Order powers, and many places in between. [See previous post “Constitutional Powers of Government (Part 3)”] While these powers are broad and have become more far-reaching, they are still put in check by other members of the U.S. Government.

If President Trump gives an order to the military, but that order doesn’t correspond to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, then the members of the military have the ability to not follow the orders, if they are illegal and against the Code. There is precedence here where members of the military were punished for following orders that violated the Uniform Code, so it’s not a far-fetched idea that the military can disobey direct orders from the president.

If the president signs an executive order that is illegal, it is not binding law. The court system is one set of checks and balances to the presidential powers. An executive order can easily be overruled by almost any federal court in the land if it is found to violate the ultimate law of the country. This has been seen during President Trump’s tenure, where the courts deemed the travel ban to be unconstitutional, until the Supreme Court ruled that it was in fact a power that the president was able to use.

The houses of Congress hold another card in the deck of checks and balances. They have the ability to pass laws and if the president vetoes the bill, they can overrule him with a 2/3 majority vote. They also carry the power to impeach the president if he violates his oath of office. Take Nixon as an example of this check and balance… He overreached his authority and fired a Special Prosecutor, which caused Congress to speed up the impeachment process, effectively ending Nixon’s presidency.

These examples as well as many others show how one person would not be able to set up his own aristocracy or dictatorship. There are thousands and thousands of high ranking officials that would have to all waive their power to allow any US President to gain full authoritarian power and frankly, that’s not going to happen. So, groups like Antifa who are stirring up violence and controversy over their fear of full blown fascism are way off base on their thinking, and only doing harm to the country that they claim they love so much. The media’s narratives of a King Trump are also wrong and show their implicit biases in their reporting.

With that being said, there has not been one single empire that has ruled forever. Every empire has fallen at one point or another and history shows that the United States of America will not last forever either. Some empires have ruled for thousands of years, others shorter. In the end, it appears that there are only 2 constants in this world: Death and Taxes.

In the aftermath of the London Bridge terrorist attack late in the evening on June 3rd, President Trump took to twitter. His tweet at 6:17PM read as:

“We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”

While I agree on the content in the text, I believe the President was wrong.

I think that jumping to conclusions immediately after an attack, of any matter is wrong. I have discussed this with people before when a new story about a mass shooting hits the airwaves, many on the left side of the aisle jump as quick as they can to stand on the graves of the dead, to push their own agenda. Trump took a move right out of the liberal left playbook this weekend when he stood on the graves of those killed in London from a terrorist attack to push his executive order agenda.

If you look at a map with the terrorist attacks since 2001 (through 2014), you will see that virtually every country in Europe has had at least 1 terrorist attack in that 14 year period… all but one country. That one country is Poland.

Why does Poland stand out as not having a single terrorist attack? If you pay much attention to world news, you might know that Poland has a very tough policy on immigration and especially on refugee resettlement. After the Brussels attack at the airport, Poland doubled down on their policy and has refused to admit refugees until they can get a system in place to verify them.

Now, obviously, correlation does not necessarily equal causation, but it’s hard to ignore the common denominator here. Poland hasn’t had a terrorist attack in recent memory and Poland has a very limited immigration policy. Those facts can’t be overlooked easily.

All of the immigration and refugee stuff aside, immediately following a tragic event is never the time to use that event to push your own agenda. It was detestable when President Obama stood on the graves of the children at Sandy Hook after a mentally ill man murdered 26 people, all in the name of pushing for more gun control. It is equally detestable for President Trump to stand on the graves of the 7 dead in London after a terrorist attack and use them to push his travel ban or extreme vetting.

There is a time and a place for this type of discussion, but before the dead are even buried is not the time. Maybe the White House would do well to have a personal “Tweeter” for the President who can say… “How about not doing that or saying that right now!” I know there are plenty of lawyers who would appreciate him being a tad more choosey with his tweets.